New warning over the fast-growing HIV threat

The HIV virus which causes Aids and is devastating sub-Saharan Africa is now "the fastest growing serious health condition in England", the chief medical officer said yesterday.

Most people infected here have been gay men, he said in his annual report. "However, the risk is ever present of the disease breaking through and infecting significant numbers of people in the heterosexual population in our country."

The CMO's report points to the alarming year-on-year rise in the numbers of people becoming infected and the failure of clinics to cope with the need to test those at risk. People who do not know they are HIV positive will fuel the epidemic by infecting new sexual partners.

Between 1996 and 1997, new infections rose by just 42, from 2,479 to 2,521. But since 2000, the numbers have increased by a little under 1,000 a year.

The last year for which there are complete figures is 2002, when 5,615 people became infected. The estimate for 2003 is more than 7,000 - the highest ever. The fastest growth is in people infected through heterosexual sex in Africa, but infections from heterosexual sex outside of Africa are also rising.

At the end of 2002, an estimated 43,500 people in England were carrying the HIV virus, but a third of them did not know it, the report said. The CMO, Sir Liam Donaldson, highlighted HIV as a major concern because of inadequate testing for the virus, which means that people ignorant of their HIV status may infect others and that some people with the virus may die because their condition is not identified in time.

Opportunities to test those at highest risk are not being taken, the report said. About 59% of men who have sex with men and visit a genito-urinary medicine clinic leave with their HIV status undiagnosed.

Every pregnant woman should be offered a test, because treatment can prevent transmission of the infection to the baby. But in London a quarter of HIV-positive pregnant women are not tested, and 13% are not tested in the rest of England.

This lack of testing "has serious implications for the HIV/Aids epidemic in England. Urgent improvements need to be made," said the report.

People are having to wait up to six weeks to have a sexually transmitted infection diagnosed, health campaigners said at the launch of a report by the Health Protection Agency on the soaring rate of other infections.

Early results of a pilot study by the HPA into waiting times at GUM clinics are worrying, said the CMO's report. More than a quarter - 28% - of emergencies were not seen within 48 hours and 8% waited longer than two weeks. Only 18% of people making routine appointments were seen within 48 hours and 41% were waiting for over two weeks.

"This report and the figures released on sexually transmitted infections underline the appalling state of the UK's sexual health," said Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust. He called for more investment in services.